Category: Speaking to the Soul

“When the metaphoric seas of change lap at our deck we spend untold time and energy, enormous resources, protecting something that nature and God insist must be change? And now, September is here during a year of shifting sands. I feel the fall chill in the air. Life has been altered in untold ways, yet all most people seem to hope for is a return to the ephemeral normal. But there is no such thing as “normal,” there never was.”

“As the seasons change

keep us open for your 

spirit at work”

“Job’s relationship with God is never personal, although he pleads passionately with God to release him, even kill him. Unlike David, or Jacob, who argued, pleaded, wrestled with God, but a God who cared for them, Job does not hear the voice God, or the Spirit, or see Jacob’s escalators of Angels, riding up and down, showing that the way to heaven is open.”

“…Christ is right here beside me, in companionable solidarity.  Whatever happens to me as an individual, to my faith community, to my country, Christ is right here.  Love accompanies me.  Love accompanies me, and for that reason my hands can be busy in the activity of love.  Christ pours through me right along with genuine love.  In fact, perhaps they are one and the same.”

“Praise the Lord for all that is good, and even stuff that may be bad at the time but which later on may be revealed as something quite the opposite.  The pandemic may have shown us that we are all brothers and sisters in the same boat, we are all responsible for one another, and we can still pull together to help each other get through this time. We are stronger because we can do things we didn’t know we could, and that’s a lesson we can take with us throughout the rest of our lives.”

“The darkness is where creation takes place. The darkness is ancient. The darkness was the companion of God long before the universe came to be. And it is from the creative, velvet darkness that God’s call to Moses, and many of us, actually originates.”

“God invites us to stop and listen, to take a deep breath, to trust that we are not alone. In our walking, taking one step after another, we catch glimpses of hope – the gentle breeze, the sun’s warmth, light breaking through, a star-filled sky, birds chirping, mushrooms, the hand of a neighbor reaching out to us. Signs of God’s presence in our midst. Keep walking forward with eyes wide open and be surprised.”

“Not only does Isaiah celebrate a foreign mission to spread the Word and gather all to God, but it suggests a way to maintain the liturgies and ceremonies of the people. In the case of Bartholomew, a way that he could go to India and establish a church, much as St. Paul did, by raising elders to bless and break the bread.”

“God created us each to be the person we are — with talents and passions that need to be used.  We are not what our family or culture dictates that we should be.  Instead we have a unique purpose, whispered to us from the depths of our own hearts, where Christ dwells.”